Q. How would you describe your time at Lakeside?

I had a very positive experience, both academically and in sports. When I later learned about the concept of “undermanned settings” in my psychology studies (a concept which suggests that people do better in a setting where the number of roles exceeds the number of individuals available to fill these roles), I immediately thought of Lakeside. Because it is a small school with a large number of extracurricular activities, and various ways in which students can participate, there are plenty of opportunities for all students. For instance, I was on the soccer and basketball teams, and played on the varsity baseball team for three years. If I had gone to a much larger high school, it is less likely I would have had these opportunities.

Q. Which of your teachers had the greatest impact on your life?

Mr. Dan Ayrault, the headmaster, my advisor throughout high school. Although he was a rather formidable person to have as an advisor, he had a very positive influence on me. He was always supportive and encouraging but at the same time, because he was headmaster, I dared not disappoint him!

Q. What inspired you to pursue a career in psychology?

After Lakeside, I went to Stanford and started out in premed, but had a tough time enjoying the required courses, such as chemistry and biology. I started taking psychology courses and found them much more intrinsically interesting. Although I hadn’t considered majoring in psychology during my high-school years, looking back, I realized that while I was at Lakeside, I had gravitated toward books related to psychology. So toward the end of my sophomore year, I switched from the premed track into psychology, and went from getting mostly C’s to straight As—it was a significant turnaround for me.

Q. What made you decide to focus your work in the areas of homelessness and poverty?

It was a combination of interest and fortuitous circumstances. I became interested in prevention during college, which led me to the study of clinical/community psychology in graduate school—a blend of working with individuals, as well as more broadly with systems that affect individuals, like schools, communities, and organizations. After completing my doctorate at the University of Maryland, I continued this emphasis in my postdoctoral fellowship at Johns Hopkins. While finishing my fellowship, I learned about a job opportunity at the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) in a newly formed office that focused its work on homelessness research. My work there immersed me in the field of homelessness. After two years, I accepted the position of director of research at the National Center on Family Homelessness in the Boston area, and remained there throughout most of the 1990s. During that time, my colleagues and I conducted a comprehensive study of homeless families and children.

Q. What led you to create your nonprofit organization, Community Resources Information (CRI)?

That was a culmination of many things, but certainly my experience studying issues affecting people living in poverty was the most important factor. Over the years, I became familiar with the types of assistance programs provided by federal and state governments (e.g., food stamps, housing assistance, Medicaid), but I had always wondered how one applies for these programs. With my limited knowledge, I felt the eligibility criteria was very complicated and I found it difficult to figure out where to find information, so I imagined that people in crisis, with fewer resources available to them, would find it even more challenging.

Because the research I had done made me more sensitive to the issue, I felt the need to help. After all, people cannot get help if they don’t even know the programs exist, or how to apply for or determine if they are eligible for government assistance. After the Internet was developed, it occurred to me it would be useful, and cost-effective, to make information regarding the full spectrum of programs accessible online. From the start, our goal was to create a Web site (e.g., www.MassResources.org) for other states to use as a template that, with minimal effort, could be tailored to include their specific programs.

Q. Who do you feel most influenced your decision to create CRI?

My father(Philip Buckner P'75 '79 '89)has been in the newspaper business for 40 years, providing information to a broad audience; my Web site is a variation of his work. Watching his career for so many years, and participating as a board member with his company, helped make it feasible for me to establish CRI.

Again, I also think back to Mr. Ayrault. Not only did he encourage me to develop myself academically and athletically, he impressed upon me the importance of helping others that was a formative influence on me. He put a seed in my head that flowered much later on when I founded CRI.